Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, BJ McLeod got behind the wheel of a NASCAR Truck Series entry for the first time since 2021, while also taking on the best opportunity of his 15-year career in NASCAR’s National Series.
The Wauchula, Florida-native was behind the wheel of the No. 07 Pigeon Forge Racing Coaster Chevrolet Silverado RST for Spire Motorsports, and for the first time in his career, had equipment that was capable of making it to Victory Lane.
McLeod finished just inside the top-15, in 15th, matching his career-best result in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (Bristol 2012, Kansas 2016). However, the journeyman driver was still kind of disappointed in his efforts.
“Being in the sport a long time and understanding how tough this stuff is, I wanted to do better for all the fans that have shown me unbelievable support over the years, and leading up to the race this weekend,” McLeod said. “I knew statistically, and the information that I had and where I’ve been racing was going to be really tough, these truckers are good and there’s a whole different style to driving this truck.”
The long-time NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series team owner has been racing in NASCAR’s top-series on all types of tracks for several years, but after selling the charter for Live Fast Motorsports and scaling the team down to part-time, McLeod hasn’t been a frequent visitor of non-superspeedway events.
“I’ve been racing speedways primarily in the [NASCAR Cup Series] car, so being out of really mile-and-a-half downforce type situations for three years now, it threw me for a loop, and I was way further off than I wanted to be when we got going.”
McLeod had placed a disappointing 28th of 34 entries in the 25-minute NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series practice earlier in the afternoon, but by the time qualifying came around, the 40-year-old driver managed to earn a starting spot inside the top 20.
Getting into race conditions, things didn’t start off much better, as McLeod faded to outside of the top-25 during the race’s first stage. But as the laps went on and the experience started to filter in, the Spire Motorsports No. 07 started surging towards the front.
“There, at the end of the second stage, I finally found my home and got to hitting what I needed to do to be good, and the lap times once I got myself together were about seventh-place lap times, so I know that I can do a lot better than I did tonight, and I’m still thankful for the way it turned out.”
McLeod had driven inside the top-20 when he got swept up in a Lap 72 wreck with Chandler Smith, Ty Majeski, and Connor Mosack, which forced the Spire Motorsports crew to assess and fix some crash damage on the Pigeon Forge Racing Coaster-sponsored machine. All things considered, though, things ended up alright.
Crossing the line in 15th, while not the shiniest finish possible, brought some confidence back into the soul of BJ McLeod, who believes that, given some more chances at running in the NASCAR Truck Series, he could be competitive.
“I look at it like if I was out there and I was ‘Man, I just don’t know how to get better, I don’t know how to improve’, I’m done. I’m out of here. I’ve got enough 30ths and 25ths, I’ve said it before, but the progression I showed through the race and the pit calls and the adjustments that Allen [Hart, crew chief] made were phenomenal. He just did a really good job dialing the truck to me, and the progress we made throughout that stint there, it just really makes me want to work harder to be better and keep trying at this.”
“I feel like I can compete here. I need a couple more, but it won’t be long, and I can compete.”
As of right now, McLeod only has this one scheduled event with Spire Motorsports in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. However, after a decent second half of the race on Friday, it’s possible the part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver might be looking for more.
